Lance Armstrong’s Teammates Claim He Doped

Gail Oskin/Getty Images(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — Eleven of Lance Armstrong’s former teammates who helped cycling’s greatest champion clinch seven victories at the Tour de France, say they also helped Armstrong use performance enhancing substances, according to a new report by the US U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

According to the USADA, which banned Armstrong for life from professional competition and stripped him of his record-setting Tour titles, the athlete, his coaches and teammates “ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”

In a statement released Wednesday, the USADA said its investigators had interviewed 26 people with direct knowledge of Armstrong’s doping and would release nearly 1,000 pages of evidence bolstering their claim that the cyclist used performance enhancing drugs.

In a career that spanned two decades, Armstrong underwent more than 500 tests for banned substances and never failed one, proof, he says, that USADA’s findings amount to little more than a “witch hunt.”

From 1999-2005, Armstrong cruised to victory at the Tour as the premiere rider on the U.S. Postal Service Team. The witnesses who lined up against him read like a Who’s Who of American cycling, including Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis, champion riders who were earlier found to be doping.

“Ignoring the 500-600 tests Lance Armstrong passed, ignoring all exculpatory evidence, and trying to justify the millions of dollars USADA has spent pursuing one, single athlete for years, USADA has continued its government-funded witch hunt of only Mr. Armstrong, a retired cyclist, in violation of its own rules and due process, in spite of USADA’s lack of jurisdiction, in blatant violation of the statute of limitations, and without honoring … national and international rules,” Herman said in a statement.

USADA will release the complete findings of their investigation Wednesday.

Many of the teammates who testified against Armstrong never tested positive for doping, but admit now that they used performance enhancing substances.

Armstrong tried to fight the USADA ban in court, but gave up and accepted the sanctions.

International cycling’s governing body, the UCI, will soon review USADA findings and decide whether it will implement its own sanctions against Armstrong.